1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to manufacturing structures and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for painting structures. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for painting a wing for an aircraft.
2. Background
In manufacturing aircraft, machines, tools, human labor, materials, and/or other suitable items may be used to assemble structures. These structures may include, for example, without limitation, a wing, a fuselage, a rudder, or some other suitable structure.
Part of the manufacturing process includes finishing structures prior to assembly. For example, a wing of an aircraft may be painted prior to attaching the wing to a fuselage. The painting of a wing may occur for a number of different reasons. For example, the exterior of the wing may be painted to provide better airflow, for aesthetic reasons, to prevent corrosion, and/or for other purposes. The interior of a wing also may be painted. This painting may be used to reduce noise, prevent corrosion, increase inspectability, and/or for other suitable purposes.
As another example, in finishing a wing, other types of corrosion-resistant compounds may be applied to the wing in addition to paint. A waxy oil also may be applied to the wing. This waxy oil fills seams, crevices, and/or other small gaps. The waxy oil soaks into these features and prevents and/or reduces water from entering the wing from these features.
Currently, the manufacturing processes for finishing a wing may require changing the orientation and location of a wing during painting. In some cases, the size of the wing may require the wing to be painted and cleaned in several different booths and to be changed in orientation several times. During this process, the wing starts out in a horizontal orientation, moves to another booth into a vertical orientation, and moves to a third booth back into a horizontal orientation.
With this type of process, the wing is placed in a first paint booth in the horizontal orientation. In this position, portions of the wing, such as the front spar, the rear spar, and the leading edge canopy, are painted in the first booth.
Thereafter, the wing is removed from the first booth and placed into a vertical orientation in a second booth. A vertical position provides access, ergonomic benefits, and safety benefits. In this booth, operations, such as sanding, masking, and painting the sides of the wing, are performed. Further, various graphics, tail numbers, maintenance markings, and/or other suitable designs may be painted onto the wing.
The wing is then removed from the second booth and placed into a horizontal orientation in a third booth. In this booth, various materials for corrosion protection may be applied to fill in crevices and seams in the wing.
This type of process requires labor, time, space, and materials. For example, moving the wing from a horizontal orientation to a vertical orientation takes a number of hours. Further, the time needed to schedule a crane for a move and have the crane arrive also may take a number of hours. As a result, the process of scheduling a crane, having the crane and crane crew arrive, and moving the wing may take around eight hours.
Operations that also increase the time needed to finish a wing include the time needed to apply finishing compounds to the wing. For example, when lines, lettering, and other graphics are painted on top of a base coat or other layer of paint, time is needed to add these graphics. For example, time is needed to allow the base coat of paint to dry sufficiently to mask off areas for painting the graphics. After the base coat has dried, then operations are performed to place tape or other materials on the wing for painting the graphics. Thereafter, the graphics are painted on the wing, and the tape may be removed after sufficient curing time has passed such that the paint is semi-cured. These different operations also may take more time than desired during the process of painting a wing.
It would be desirable to have a method and apparatus that takes into account one or more of the issues discussed above, as well as possibly other issues.